Cage Match Project Podcast
By Cage Match Project
Cage Match Project PodcastMay 22, 2020
Round 20: Maggie Jensen "Attitudes of Humility"
The curator of the Cage Match project and host for this podcast, Aryel René Jackson, interviews Maggie Jensen for the first episode of season 2. In each of her installations, Maggie Jensen becomes involved in different systems or aesthetics of authority, whether the art institution, a natural history archive, or extractive resource infrastructures. In this episode, Jensen discusses the process as she describes the material and history of the "model", "index", and found object in "Round 20: "Attitudes of Humility". Jensen talks about making requests of a cultural archive to access data about Nancy Holt's 1976 "Sun Tunnels" and how the process informs how we might think about displaying objects. Jensen's practice asks us to consider what paths and limits are revealed about the internal logic institutions related to the Land Art genre, water main casings, and drainage pipes. https://www.maggiejensen.com/
Installation materials consist of unaltered HDPE industrial culvert pipe; platforms of cement board and wood; cast concrete of water main casings broken by extreme heat-related pressure; a curved wall mapped with a reproduced constellation used by artist Nancy Holt in the 1976 landwork "Sun Tunnels".
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Round 15: Rachel Means "Overgrown"
The curator of the Cage Match Project and host for this podcast, Ariel René Jackson, interviews Rachel Means for the last episode of the season. Rachel Means is an Austin-based multidisciplinary installation artist. Means will be installing her project in the cage in the next upcoming months. We talk about Means' practice and how she incorporates line, natural fibers, and found materials to explore ritual, Christian faith, and nature. Her work explores form and ways of becoming. She earned her Masters in Fine Arts at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts before arriving in Austin, Texas. Episode Art: "Remembered Humility" 2019 by Rachel Means. https://www.rachelsreflections2014.com
"Material symbolism" André Fuqua
The curator of the Cage Match Project and host for this podcast, Ariel René Jackson, interviews André Fuqua, an interdisciplinary artist based in Austin, Texas. Fuqua's training in civil engineering and architecture guides much of his practice and his work explores ideas surrounding space, visibility, otherness, and power. He has strong interests in material ethos, the built environment, and hidden narratives. We talk about how Fuqua's background of engineering and southern familial heritage influence and direct the materials and subjects of his artistic practice. Fuqua discusses the ethos of materials as he explains his developing term "material symbolism" and how cultural and societal symbols develop out of our surroundings and cultural heritage. Episode Art: "A He" 2015 by André Fuqua https://www.andreishere.us
"vibraciones de temblores" Stephanie Concepcion Ramirez
The curator of the Cage Match project and host for this podcast, Ariel René Jackson, interviews Stephanie Concepcion Ramirez, a second-generation Salvadoran-American born and raised in Prince George's County, MD and now based in Pearland, TX. Ramirez's photographs and installations utilize familial and historical archives as well as found objects such as emergency blankets to confront existing narratives of Central American migrants. We talk about her use of emergency blankets and archival imagery in her 2019 installation "vibraciones de temblores" (vibrations of tremors). We consider what political artwork could look like when there is room for vulnerability in processing traumatic histories. Episode Art : "por amor" 2019 by Stephanie Concepcion Ramirez https://stephaniecramirez.com/Project-Index
"Silence" Aimeé Everett
The curator of the Cage Match Project and host for this podcast, Ariel René Jackson, interviews Aimeé Everett, a New Orleans native currently based in Austin, Texas. Everett creates visual diaries through abstract paintings, utilizing her thoughts, inspirations, and experiences as inspiration for generating line and color. Her work explores portraying silence oftentimes using a circular surface of wood or canvas. We discuss Black interiority and the ways that Black abstract artists use the genre to address inward exploration. Episode Art : "A Visualized Trauma" 2018 by Aimeé Everett https://www.aimeemeverett.com
"Black compositional thought" Torkwase Dyson
The curator of the Cage Match Project and host for this podcast, Ariel René Jackson, interviews Torkwase Dyson, a painter working across multiple mediums in order to explore the continuity between ecology, infrastructure, and architecture. Dyson's abstract works grapple with the ways in which space is perceived and negotiated, particularly by Black and Brown bodies. In this episode Dyson describes her working term "Black compositional thought" that names the ways that Black bodies mold and shape spaces for self-liberation. We discuss the importance of self-care and revisiting the lived experiences of Black ancestors for inspiration in finding ways to survive and prosper. Episode Art : Untitled (419) 2018 by Torkwase Dyson https://www.pacegallery.com/artists/torkwase-dyson/
"Indigenous | Technologies" Mukhtara Yusuf
The curator of the Cage Match project and host for this podcast, Ariel René Jackson, interviews Mukhtara Yusuf, a Yoruba-Nigerian-Muslim designer and scholar whose work focuses on decolonizing design, sustainability, alternative economies and design in the global south. Their interests explore the relationship between science, code, Ifa, and colour in order to bring Yoruba epistemological knowledge production into dialogue with Western scientific epistemology. On this episode discusses their Yoruba design framework and approach to Western design. Yusuf talks us through the problematic confinement and destructive nature of Westernized design. How can we insist on Indigenous traditions of design in a world that understands technology as Western specific? Follow Mukhtara Yusuf at www.instagram.com/mukhtarayusuf/
"to be a box" hiba ali
The curator of the Cage Match project and host for this podcast, Ariel René Jackson, interviews hiba ali, a digital artist, educator, scholar, DJ, experimental music producer and curator based across Chicago, IL, Toronto, Ontario, and Austin, Texas where our paths crossed during our time as graduate students attending The University of Texas at Austin. ali is currently a PhD candidate in Cultural Studies at Queens University in Kingston, Canada. Her performances and videos center on surveillance, womxn of color, and labor. She also conducts reading groups addressing digital media and workshops with open-source technology. On this episode we discuss ali's artistic practice and dissertation research on Amazon and how it has monopolized perceivable options of where to purchase items online during COVID-19. hiba discusses some alternatives to purchasing items on Amazon. Check out www.threshold.us/c/cancelprime for practical strategies as well hiba ali's "Amazonification : Reading List" at www.hibaali.info/projects/amazonification-reading-list for more information.
"Rock Standard Time (RST)"Betelhem Makonnen
The curator of the Cage Match Project and host for this podcast, Ariel René Jackson, interviews Betelhem Makonnen, an Austin-based artist whose practice challenges societal limitations regarding identity, migration, and time. On this episode we focus on time as our metaphorical cage regarding the demand for productivity and how we might resist having to choose between that and exile. Makonnen talks about the ideas behind their solo exhibition, "Rock Standard Time (RST)" at Big Medium Gallery. How much time does inner wellbeing require? We discuss the importance of slowing down time in Makonnen's practice as well as their personal life. You can find more information about Makonnen's practice on their website www.betelhemmakonnen.com
Round 14: Taylor Barnes "(un)box"
The curator of the Cage Match Project and host for this podcast, Ariel René Jackson, interviews Round 14 artist, Taylor Barnes, an Austin-based artist whose interdisciplinary fiber practice engages a research-based approach to internal and external complexities of her experience as a Black woman in America. Her current research in Barracoons utilizes wood, nails, and fiber to transform the cage into an enclosed shelter, complicating the notion of confinement and shifting meaning towards safety. We spoke about the possibilities and limitations of understanding the experience of enslaved Africans held in Barracoons before being boarding onto Atlantic slave ships–not knowing what tomorrow might bring. Relating this sense of not knowing to our reality of shelter-at-home, Barnes talks about the necessity to create in order to relieve anxiety and we chat about society’s seemingly psychic preparedness for social distancing via social media and cell phones. Between now and whenever the Austin area is relieved of social distancing, it is my intention to bring on individuals to speak further about notions of being confined but in the meantime enjoy the show! @cagematchproject @barnes_artistry__ @arielrenejacksonstudio
Round 13: Kara Springer "Hold. Elmina, Ghana (2012), Austin, Texas, United States (2020)"
The curator of the Cage Match Project and host for this podcast, Ariel René Jackson, interviews Round 13 artist Kara Springer about her practice as well as her installation for CMP titled "Hold. Elmina, Ghana (2012), Austin, Texas, United States (2020)". Check out photos of Kara's installation at www.cagematchproject.com
We talk about Kara's transition from an industrial designer, founding the Kaya Birth Stool, to her interdisciplinary practice, where she is concerned with armature–the underlying structure that holds the flesh of a body in place. We talk caring for bodies, motherhood, memory and place, mobility and stillness, and the diasporic relationship between chattel slavery and the separation of families at the US Border.
The Cage Match Project is a gallery that lives in an industrial caged-trailer. This weathered and rusted container resides in a gravel parking lot in Austin, Texas where it is under constant exposure to the elements and 24-hour public viewership.
The Cage Match Project was developed by Ryan Hawk, a Houston based artist, with support by The Museum of Human Achievement, The Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department, and Big Medium gallery.
Instagram : @cagematchproject